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Our SMCR solution has been created from regulatory material licensed to us by the Financial Conduct Authority and combined with best practice content to generate over 400 compliance tests.

What are the new Senior Managers Regime rules?

  • The financial services regulatory landscape has become increasingly complex and senior managers are now ultimately responsible for compliance failures in their organisation.
  • New rules include a Senior Managers Regime for individuals who are subject to approval, which requires firms to allocate a range of responsibilities to these individuals.
  • A new Certification Regime obliges relevant firms to assess the fitness and propriety of senior managers and certain employees who could pose a risk of significant harm.
  • These are accompanied by a new set of ‘Conduct Rules’ relating to professional standards to be upheld throughout the wider organisation.

Why does this present a problem?

  • First of all, ownership can be hard to assign when someone is wary of the consequences and some senior managers have actually resigned because of the potential exposure.
  • The complexity of the new rules makes it hard to be confident in your processes, the Handbook isn’t easy to navigate and the FCA won’t be producing a digital version soon.
  • Dispersed compliance data is tricky to collect, if you’re relying on spreadsheets they can be overwritten and have limited scope for audit.
  • Retaining evidence can also be a problem, some firms don’t trust their HR systems and documents are being kept on multiple servers.
  • All this activity comes at a cost and if the regulator does come knocking you may not have long to respond and several teams might be deployed to find the right answer.
  • This is all because the new regime comes with unlimited fines and even jail sentences for the worst offenders.

How can Solvassure help?

  • Solvassure is a unique cloud based solution that distributes, collates and tracks automated SMCR assurance information direct from key stakeholders with faster results and lower costs.
  • It eliminates the need for update meetings, phone calls, emails and spreadsheets by providing secure real time data with status and priority settings accessible online twenty four seven.
  • Its automated data gathering, escalation and resolution functions alleviate the time and cost involved in collating regulatory information and put the confidence back into presenting it.

Platform features

Senior Managers Regime

Senior managers are able to accept their responsibilities digitally, which in turn enables key documentation to be produced efficiently and historical records accessed quickly.

  • Allocation of senior management functions
  • Assignment and tracking of prescribed responsibilities
  • Printing of statements of responsibilities
  • Interactive management responsibilities map
  • Designation of significant influence functions
  • Nomination of management groups & committees
  • Production of handover certificates and material
  • Monitoring of delegated activities and out of office deputy

Certification Regime

A calendar function automates repetitive certification activities, delivering templates and collecting evidence where required.

  • Allocation of significant harm functions
  • Automated FIT checks for honesty, integrity, reputation
  • Automated FIT checks for competence, capability
  • Automated FIT checks for financial soundness
  • Capture of employer’s and regulatory reference
  • Production of annual FIT certificate

Conduct Rules

A notifications function delivers targeted instructions to users, whilst a prioritised dashboard highlights exceptions to key stakeholders in real time.

  • Senior manager and individual conduct rules
  • Capture of employee’s training history
  • Whistleblowing process to nominated stakeholders
  • Disciplinary reporting and appraisal tracking
  • Fully automated internal communications

Duty of Responsibility

A unique regulations library enables assurance workflow and KPI’s to be introduced at a level and complexity appropriate to the business.

  • Low level regulations extracted from Handbook
  • Department operations and direct report KPI’s
  • Board and committee governance checks
  • Executive on-boarding and departure process
  • Assignment and tracking of NED responsibilities

Managed service

We can also provide a managed service to set up and administer your SMCR assurance obligations using our technology, whilst you can’t outsource the responsibility you can outsource the process.

  • Free up your team to concentrate on business as usual activities
  • Ensure that all processes are set up and run with minimum effort
  • Improve the quality and effectiveness of your policies and controls
  • Easily scale up (and down) trained resource to meet demand
  • Enrich your compliance productivity, quality and performance metrics
  • Convert fixed costs into variable costs and release working capital
  • Add new regulations into the same service to increase savings further

Secure hosting

Our software as a service solution provides a single source of information twenty four seven and lowers compliance expenditure with cost effective pricing.

  • Secure cloud based platform
  • Data centre conforms to ISO27001
  • Smartphone app with location marking
  • Business hours helpdesk

Key principles

The Senior Managers Regime replaces existing Controlled Functions with Senior Management Functions to which prescribed responsibilities must be assigned.

The Certification Regime requires firms to assess the fitness and propriety of certain employees who could pose a risk of significant harm to the firm or any of its customers.

Conduct Rules are the professional standards set by the regulator that are to be upheld throughout the wider organisation with the exception of certain support staff.

Action can now be taken against a senior manager where there has been a contravention by the firm, a senior manager was responsible for any of the related activities and reasonable steps were not taken to avoid it.

The Senior Managers Regime will be extended in 2019 to the remaining solo regulated firms and the FCA has published its final rules in support of this.

Solvassure.
Assurance Technology.

A quick and practical video guide

Check out our new 10 part series that outlines the financial services accountability rules and the activities firms should be focusing on to stay compliant.

Where is our material licensed from?

The Financial Conduct Authority was established on 1 April 2013, taking over responsibility for conduct and relevant prudential regulation from the Financial Services Authority. It aims to ensure that markets are honest, fair and effective so that consumers get a fair deal, making markets work well for individuals, business, and the economy as a whole. It does this by regulating the conduct of more than 58,000 firms, it is also the prudential regulator for more than 18,000 of these businesses. The FCA is an independent public body funded entirely by the firms it regulates and is accountable to the Treasury. Solvassure was the first RegTech firm to be licensed by the FCA and the PRA to use its copyright regulatory material.

Solvassure.
Assurance Technology.